So I think something got totally screwd up durring my linux install (probably had something to do with loosing power in the middle) when I went to see what my kernel was called for my grub configuration there wasn't anything in the /boot folder (except the grub folder and the lost&found) and that didn't seem right, I just thought I would put up a post to make sure before I went through that all again.

No, I tried to do it the hard way and I scewed up. What ever, its not important now, I redid it with genkernel and now I am up and running. Now what I need is a good list of packages to install (or emerge) so that I can have the basics like a graphical GUI and what not. Got any suggestions?

Never mind, I found it, anyone else who wants to know this, its all on the gentoo.org page under docs just where I should have looked before posting.

New question: after you emerge something, it seems like it always has you run the command env-update && source /etc/profile which not only gives you a different looking prompt, but it seems like it gives me a different bash, what am I suposed to be using and why does it feel like the commands I need aren't there?

I usually run each command seperately (not on the same line) without the &&

What each one does is:

env-update - resets your environment variables and loads any new items required by a new compiled program ... based on what portage knows is installed.

source /etc/profile - this is a default set of environment variables ... since we rest the variables above, we need to reload the default environemnt again. (the Source command allows you to do this in bash ... /etc/profile is the actual file loaded that contains the environment variables).

It shouldn't give you a new bash ... it does reset your environment. You should either be running these commands in the console ... or in a bash terminal window.

well, there are some commands that I can run before I run source /etc/profile and than can't after, or can't before and can after, thats why I get confused.

Like when I start up the system, I still have it loading a command line, and so I log in, and than in order to run kdm to get KDE I have to first run source /etc/profile or it doesn't know what the command is.

And than ounce I am in kde, I can't run anything graphical programs after I run source /etc/profile because it complains about my x enviroment not being something.... I don't remeber, I will get back to you on that.